Bernini and the Roman Baroque: Masterpieces from Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia

“A rare man and sublime talent, he was born for the glory of Rome with the Divine Disposition to bring light to that century.”

— Domenico Bernini, Life of the Cavalier Gio. Lorenzo Bernini, 1713

The term Baroque connotes an abundance of detail, a sense of irregularity, and a sort of eccentric redundancy—all emblematic of an extraordinary generation of artists who converged in Rome at the dawn of the seventeenth century. This artistic style became a cultural phenomenon, spreading concurrently from Naples to Venice, Vienna to Prague, and Bohemia to St. Petersburg, finally assuming its full global dimensions when it reached the Americas. Bernini and the Roman Baroque: Masterpieces from Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia explores the genesis of this one-of-a-kind artistic movement. Through a selection of 55 works from 40 artists, including 10 works by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, this exhibition illuminates Bernini’s influence and explores how it resonated across the Baroque movement.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, artists definitively set aside the Caravaggesque model for a more transversal dialogue between the real and the supernatural, the superfluous and the necessary. After the death of the famous Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens, the debate between “naturalists” and “classicists” (respectively, followers of the styles of Caravaggio and Annibale Carracci) originated a new figurative language, namely the “Baroque,” which found in Gian Lorenzo Bernini its undisputed protagonist. Thanks to the masterpieces conserved in Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia, we can trace the spectacular path by which the “Baroque” became a universal vernacular expression.

Bernini and the Roman Baroque comprehensively maps the rich spectrum of genres and pictorial styles that characterize Baroque aesthetics. Its many luminous examples of these diverse categories—not only history painting but also alternative genres such as portraiture, self-portraiture and landscaping, as well as preparatory sketches used for large decorative frescoes—epitomize Baroque’s ultimate goal of elevating the viewer in mind and soul, communicating the moral and spiritual messages of the Catholic Church.

Please contact TravelingExhibitions@ArtsandArtists.org for more information.

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